The Wild Side

The secret to a great ski shot? “You have to be in the right place, at the right time and have the right light,” says Dave Trumpore. Trumpore, a professional photographer who spends most of the year flying around the world to capture award-winning action photos of mountain biking and motocross, makes a practice of this.

“When I’m here in Vermont, I like to get up really early with some friends. We’ll often get up at 3 am and skin to the summit to get there just at dawn. Or we’ll wait until the sun is about to set to get a shot.”

You might know Trumpore’s work from a recent Patagonia catalog. That’s his cover shot and photo spreads of mountain biking in Vermont. Or you may know his work from ads for Yeti Cycles, photos from Red Bull events, or image galleries featured on Pinkbike. Trumpore’s Instagram has more than 35,000 followers.

Though he spends half the year in Europe or South America, and also has a home in Washington state, Trumpore keeps calling Vermont home. When he’s here, his base is his condo in Killington. “It has everything – great skiing and great mountain biking right there, plus I have no trouble renting the place out on Airbnb when I’m not there,” he says. Trumpore grew up in Connecticut, spending weekends skiing and biking in Vermont. He took to riding and was a competitive racer in the first wave of pro downhill mountain bikers, but he didn’t pursue it too seriously. “I’d basically choose a few World Cups, like the ones in Mont St. Anne, Quebec, to do as a part of a ‘vacation,’” he says.

He went to the University of Vermont and then secured a job with Red Bull. “At first I was just shooting bike racing for fun,” he says. Pretty soon, he was good enough to leave his job in beverage distribution and marketing and make photography his full-time gig.

“I lived out West for a while and that’s where a lot of my clients were but I kept coming back to Vermont. It made sense to have a home base here as I’m also in Europe a lot,” he says.

Vermont’s community is also what drew him back. “What I love about Vermont that you don’t get in Colorado is you can for a bike ride or a backcountry ski and you get back to the parking lot at the trailhead and there’s this instant community. Everyone is a friend of someone you know, or you become fast friends and pretty soon you’re sharing beers together around a campfire.”

It was through riding with friends that Trumpore met a fellow UVM grad, pro athlete and photographer Brooks Curran. “We just like to do the same things, so we’d head out and shoot together. Sometimes I’d hold the camera, sometimes he would – but he’s way better at skiing for the camera than I am,” says Trumpore.

Having a good ski model, says Trumpore, is one of the secrets to a good image. “There are some great skiers and if you see a video of them, they ski beautifully. But skiing or biking well for a still image is something else and Brooks is just good at both.”

In the last couple of winters, the pair have headed out early and stayed out late to explore Vermont’s backcountry. “For most of the places we go, you have to skin to get there.” Often, that means the crannies and frozen falls and rivers of Smuggler’s Notch, the secret glades off Sugarbush and Mad River Glen or the Jay Peak backcountry.”

“I love that you don’t usually have to worry about avalanche dan-

The early birds get the turns. Curran and Trumpore caught first light on this dawn patrol mission to the ridge of Mt. Mansfield. The photo was taken at 7 a.m. Below, Trumpore’s photo of Jake Inger riding the granite in Burke made the cover of the Patagonia catalog.

ger here,” says Trumpore. “There have been so many days after a big snowfall out West that I’ve had friends beg me to head out. I’m like, ‘Nope, it’s just not worth it.’”

That said, the Green Mountains have earned his respect. “One of my friends, Alec Stall, was killed while skiing in the Notch,” Trumpore mentions. Stall had been there skiing for a Meatheads film when the accident happened. “I’ve also been in the same area where Aaron Rice set off an avalanche a few years ago,” Trumpore says.

While many of his images may look extreme, Trumpore doesn’t necessarily seek out those shots. “The thing about shooting skiing in Vermont is you shouldn’t try to make it look like the big mountain West. “Don’t try to make it look like something else,’ I always tell people. Just make it look fun because that’s what skiing here is all about.”

Most of the time, when Trumpore clicks into his bindings, it is just to ski for fun with friends. “We’re not doing multiple takes or setting up shots. We often just have one camera among us and it’s like when the light is just right and you see a good shot, you go for it. Other times, the light won’t be right, but I’ll sort of bookmark this in my head and think “Ok, in the spring, the light will be just right.’”

It was on one of those ‘just for fun’ afternoons that Trumpore and Curran got the shots that ended up in the Patagonia catalog. “It wasn’t an assignment, we were just out there having fun,” Trumpore says with a laugh. That’s what it’s all about. u